Rich Peterson, MINIdeck Motorsports, with the beginning to become famous Bagheera competed in the United States Touring Car Championship (USTCC) session ending race at Infineon Raceway.

The action filled weekend of October 8 and 9 was exciting. The field was reduced, with only the top contending teams for the Championship attending. Bagheera was a little temperamental on Saturday with some extreme over steer. We tried the esses going backward but gave up on that option. After some adjustments we were able to keep the car pointed in the right direction but still had considerable over steer. The cooler outside air tempeture at Infineon required us to adjust tire pressures from were we normally run on the Hankook spec tire. Saturday’s qualifying lap times were running 2:24. The practice race we dropped our times to 2:18.

Sunday, things seemed to come together. Practice got times down to 2:14 and we felt we were moving in the right direction. After additional suspension adjustments and tire pressure changes , qualifying times on Sunday dropped to 2:05 placing us 6th on the grid.

The green flag dropped with a standing start and with a little too much gusto Bagheera spun the wheels and we were passed by the Evo and Audi A4 both AWD cars. A rookie mistake on my part. Our times during the race dropped to 2:04 but not quite good enough to stay with the pack. We finished 8th out of 9 starters.

For the series it looks as if we finished the year 5th in rookie points, and in the top 20 in the driver standings. It also looks as if MINI moved from 8th to 6th ahead of BMW and Volkswagen with our finish for the Manufacturer Championship Points.

We had a good year for our first season of racing. During the off season we need to finish the suspension and additional engine tuning. We then feel we can finish in the top 10 consistently and hope for a podium finish.

Thanks to all the NAM members that gave us their support and encouragement through out the year and stopped by the tracks to say hi. My crew, daughter Grace, is Crew Chief, and wife Brigett is Chief Designer and maker of our uniforms and image. They all love to talk to fellow MINI owner and sometimes bring our CR/W MINI S to the track as well. We’ll keep you posted as to when we’ll be racing when the USTCC 2006 schedule is finalized.